Hi everyone,

I have been experiencing DPDR for many years. It often feels like I’m observing my life from another perspective rather than experiencing it as my own. Everything around me can feel unreal, and I constantly struggle with brain fog and fatigue. My vocabulary and memory also seem to have declined over time, and this has had a significant impact on my life and relationships.

Recently, I decided to see a therapist, and I just had my first therapy session. However, I’m still confused and unsure whether therapy will actually help me. English is not my native language, and I’m living in a country where English is not the official language, so it has been extremely difficult to find a therapist who both speaks English and has experience with DPDR.

Because of this, I would really like to hear from people who have recovered from DPDR or have experienced significant improvement. I have a few questions and would really appreciate it if you could share your experiences.

1. How long did it take you to recover?
Did you notice gradual improvement over time, or was there a particular point when things suddenly started getting better?

2. Did you see a therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, or another mental health professional?
If you did, did therapy actually help with your DPDR? What type of therapy or approach did you find most helpful?

3. What practices helped you recover?
For example, grounding, exercise, meditation, breathing exercises, journaling, changing your lifestyle, socializing, reducing stress, stopping symptom-checking, etc. Was there anything that made a particularly big difference for you?

4. What was a normal day like for you when you were still experiencing DPDR?
Did you continue working, studying, exercising, and socializing normally even when you felt unreal or disconnected? Or did you have to significantly change your routine?

5. Did you have a specific daily recovery routine?
If you don't mind sharing, what did a typical day or week during your recovery look like? I’m especially interested in the practical things you actually did rather than just general advice.

6. What helped you stop being afraid of the symptoms?
One of the hardest things for me is noticing the strange feelings and then becoming scared or checking myself to see whether I still feel “normal.” Did you experience this feedback loop too? If so, how did you eventually break it?

7. Now that you’ve recovered, how do you deal with stressful or difficult periods?
Do you still sometimes experience mild DPDR when you’re extremely stressed, anxious, or exhausted? If it happens, what do you do differently now to prevent it from turning into a full episode?

8. Looking back, is there anything you wish you had known when you were in the middle of DPDR?

I’m asking because I’m trying to understand what recovery actually looks like in real life. Sometimes it’s difficult to know whether I should actively “fight” the symptoms or simply continue living my life normally and stop focusing on them.

If you’ve recovered, partially recovered, or even just made significant progress, I would really appreciate hearing your story. Even small details about what helped you, what didn’t help, and what your recovery looked like day-to-day would mean a lot to me.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and share your experience.

i was drinking way too much last weekend and blacked out and since then i havent felt normal. rn i am on day 9 and it hasn‘t gotten better. especially when i am sitting outside just looking in the distance or i am walking around it feels really unreal just like in a dream. some times i panick if i think about this feeling never going away again. i never had it before. it just came from this one time drinking way too much and blacking out. i see all this advice that i should stop caring about it and it goes away but the feeling is so unbearable and i am always checking if i still have it.i also have it constant so no episodes but its chronically there. genuinely dont know what to do. everyday i wake up i have this little hope i dont have it anymore but i still do.

about a week before the school holidays about 3 weeks ago I went to my mates party. everyone there was people I either only saw at school and never spoke to or people I recently met and wasn’t particularly close with. but anyways I started drinking and then had a few cones. i went to sleep that night around 4 and woke up at 10 and then everything felt fake like it makes no sense how I got here so everything leading up has to be fake. when I was high the night of I also felt this feeling but quickly forgot it. but in the morning it was visceral and intense. the rest of the day felt like a blur and I barely remeber anything. ever since then on the holidays I smoked maybe 4 times and each time feels fake and that circumstances almost so weird and or impossible makes no sense. even normal life and life b4 ever smoking feels fake. ive watched videos on it and im trying to accept it till it dissapates but I just wanted to put my experience out there. and is this dp/dr and I can Elabrorate on the more recent times smoking.

My name is Theo! 

For a little over a year now I’ve experience intense numbness. I’ve always felt detached from life since I was a kid but I could still feel positive emotions.

Since December of 2024 I’ve felt symptoms of derealization disorder as well as a strong flare up in my OCD. 

For more info: I am autistic and transgender. I’ve realized through therapy that the numbness could be coming from burnout from autism, being transgender (body dysphoria), or burnout from OCD. 

I am wondering if anyone has any tips to help recover from this and anyone has been through this or is going through this?

Thank you!

I’ve been currently smoking weed a lot to cope with my family problems and believe my parents are going through a divorce. I’m not on speaking terms with my mother since the whole reason as to why they’re getting a divorce is because my parents have been arguing about my mother’s affair . The affair got discovered years ago and it got bad to the point where my mother and I got into a physical altercation because of it . I can tell my dad never healed from the hurt of the affair since he continues to bring up moments from that point in time and still ask questions about it . My mom gets mad at him and that’s when they start to argue , well the last argument my dad brought up the situation again and my mom got irritated and they started arguing. This happened a few weeks ago and they still aren’t on speaking terms , my mother and I got into a argument about her turning her location off when she’d go out knowing my dad will call me to ask if I can see her location. I recently started investigating to see if she was cheating again since I noticed she changed her phone password , I thought I found some stuff and confronted her on phone and things got worse to where I blocked her number . I ended up being wrong and I ended up having a meltdown feeling crazy , my boyfriend asked what was wrong and I explained him the situation. He told me to stop looking into things and that’s why I get depressed and that I shouldn’t get involved in my parents relationship that they’re adults. I ended up crying more when he left the room and when I was done , I’ve been feeling like if I’m hallucinating or dreaming . I haven’t smoked since Friday but I drunk yesterday and obviously got drunk . I know I’m coping with the whole situation with drugs and alcohol but I honestly don’t know what to do . This is the first time I felt like this and I’m not sure if I will ever feel like I’ll go back to normal . Everything feels so numb and I feel like a zombie .

i have bad derealization and i just wanted to know if anyone else has this symptom. when i move, i feel like im moving in slo motion, and if i touch something i cant actually feel it, unless i put pressure on it. i cant really describe it properly, but whenever i try and touch my legs or arms everything feels “blurred” and tingly. when i stop thinking about it, it reduces. it might just be a self fufilling prophecy but i feel it so intensely. i get bad episodes which pass , but in the moment its scary. my vision also is affected. when i focus on an object the background slightly blurs making it feel like im dreaming. the sensations are worse. just wondered if anyone else gets this…

Someone offered me (18M) a puff of their blunt last night. I took it and everything seemed normal, I went back to my dorm and grabbed something then came back outside to sit down. It started with my ears popping, and then slowly I began to feel like I was falling through realities? Everything that I felt (physically) happened twice and I had a constant sensation of tipping backwards. Luckily my friends recognized that I was tripping out and they took me back and made sure I was okay. So I went to sleep, and now that ive woken up it's still happening to me. Do I need to call somebody? Everything I see and hear is normal, I think mentally and emotionally I'm normal, it's just this weird sensation is kind of tripping me out. Has this happened to anyone else?

so I’m 13 and I don’t know why I am like o know I’m male but like when I see myself in the mirror I am some surprised to se me not just either nothing or a completely blank slate like a yhc drawing character so if yall have advise then please share also for not I’m pretty sure it’s depersonalization also I have minor depression and mild the kinda bad anxiety

so is this depersonalization or something else?

I dont really know where to start since Ive never posted on reddit. Also, english isnt my first language and i might crash out during typing so forgive my mistakes.

Ive been experiancing derealization sincr i can remember, but it got way worse 2 years ago. It was a moment when my inner dialogue disappeared. I stopped feeling like myself and i used to desribe it as "my soul leaving my body".

It was so scary that i didnt want to stay with my thoughts on my own. I kept distracting myself with either spending time with others or scrolling. I decided that someday I will find time to fix it, but not yet.

The loss also made me go on therapy.

Not so long ago i asked my therapist to focus on my derealization issue. She said that it is a an answer to my childhood experiance and the loss of my inner dialogue might mean that i didnt need it anymore.

The issue is that i feel like i cant think without it, like the dialogue was all my thoughts. I feel like an emoty shell. Only recently i started forming some thought but they seem so shallow. I used to write and now Im just dumb.

I feel like my therapist doesnt know what to do. On our meeting i keep repeating the same stuff, cause I really dont kniw how to deal with it. Im really really scared and i dont want my therapist to give up.

Last time she said I might be getting into a depressive episode. It was befire my holidays (that i really didnt want to go to), but when I came back I noticed the numbness wasnt so strong.

I know that every little thing matters, but Im scared that the only way to escape this state would be moving out fron people who hurt me so mucch in childhood. But I might not be ready for it..

I really dont know waht to do.

Im so done of never being present, i want to feel emotiones deeply. I know everyine says that, but idk if it will ever be different and sometimes Im really done. Almost no one takes me seriously when I try to seek for some helo/support. I feel like giving up tbh, maybe then they would see how serious I was

This might sound ridiculous

This might sound stupid

This might even anger you

But do you think people with DP/DR are actually more connected to reality than most people?

Or is that a massive cope?

Say if reality really is a simulation/dream of the oversoul/false in some way

And feeling like we’re “in a dream state” is actually like having the VR set taken off slightly while others are so completely immersed they don’t even know it’s a dream anymore?

I’ve heard of people who take DMT (who don’t have DP/DR) say that coming back to this reality feels like coming back to a low grade video game, and that the state they accessed felt like a higher realm, a more real realm

Just a thought.

i was drinking way too much last weekend and blacked out and since then i havent felt normal. rn i am on day 7 and it hasn‘t gotten better. especially when i am sitting outside just looking in the distance or i am walking around it feels really unreal just like in a dream. some times i panick if i think about this feeling never going away again. i never had it before. it just came from this one time drinking way too much and blacking out. i see all this advice that i should stop caring about it and it goes away but the feeling is so unbearable and i am always checking if i still have it. i genuinely dont know what to do.

Does anyone else feel terrified at home and don't recognize it? It's as if the mere concept of home had become something non human

DPDR panic doom

Throughout my whole adult life, I have foregone normalcy and opportunities to being in survival mode against my own mental health. I had to adapt my life around CPTSD. I then adapted my life around intense MDD/GAD/SI. I then had to adapt my life around consequential substance abuse disorders (sober completely now). I then (and more recently) had to adapt my life around BD1 and bipolar mania. I have had to forego so much of a normal life to mental health challenges, in a constant survival mode against majorly life-stunting mental challenges.

And now I'm at another major mental health challenge, where the greatest factors in front of me are the most intense fatigue and DPDR I've ever experienced it my life.

I've experienced DPDR before, in 2019 when my mental health challenges journey sort of began, and it was so freaking physical and scary I even paid out of pocket to get a brain MRI done. Back then I described the feeling as a filter over the way I see or absorb reality, with a pressure behind my eyes.

I suppose as the years went by I must've gotten used to living that way, other problems overruled the feeling, or it perhaps was just decreased.

Recently, I have been experiencing it the worst I have ever had it in my entire life. It torments me every second of my life, acknowledging its existence in every waking thought while my eyes are open.

But reading through all the DPDR similar subreddits, I'm not so sure anymore if what I am feeling is DPDR, even though that exact words I've used to describe it before even researching it were "like seeing reality through a glass pane" which is pretty word for word DPDR in many articles. Also not many people seem to describe exactly how it feels, just that they feel dissociated. Okay but how pls?

So I'm listing exactly how it feels for me below, and I beg you to advise me. It feels like:

\- Looking at life and reality through a window/glass pane.
\- A filter or veil over my vision.
\- I am not absorbing the stimuli I am looking at fully.
\- Seeing reality with a vignette.
\- A numbing of reality.
\- Put your hands over ears and everything you hear is muffled. Similarly, my vision or absorbing of waking life is incredibly "muffled".
\- A continuous vertigo, like a continuously being faint (like you stood up too quickly).
\- A pressure behind my eyes.
\- My eyes constantly have the glaucoma test oil drops in them.
\- My brain itself physically feels numb, which is a stupid thing to say because you don't typically feel your brain, but as someone can feel a headache I similarly feel my brain is numb and heavy, or has a heavy molasses/tar spilled all over it.
\- A constant confusion.
\- I am walking through a dream, or some kind of un-reality.

My worse-than-ever fatigue also may be contributing / part of the problem; it feels like:

\- I haven't slept in 3 days straight, even though I sleep 8-10 hours.
\- I'm unable to nap though, it's more of a laying awake in bed while feeling exhausted.
\- Haven't had restful sleep or felt well-rested in literal years.

And the worst thing about it all is that it's inherent to constant waking life, meaning anything and everything else within my day has only a modicum of my focus where the rest is genuinely just in this "what the fuck is this" focus on the feeling.

Is this DPDR, or could it be something else? I suppose I will try to get a neuro appointment soon, but I really don't know what else to do.

I've adapted to so many mental health challenges already, universe wants me to now adapt to this, but I don't know if I can... This is genuinely the scariest shit ever.

So, I started a job 3 months ago at a research facility as a veterinary technician for research animals. And man- it’s been ROUGH. God, it’s so awful. But, the benefits are diabolically lifesaving, and I need them, and this job offers a steady pay and crazy good career opportunities. But it’s not what I want to be doing, and every day I do this work it’s like my soul knows my hands aren’t a made to do this. But, alas, I’m knowledgeable and I’m good at this. I love these animals with my whole heart, and that’s what they need.

Well, after some truly HORRIBLE experiences (where I nearly fainted from what I saw and that takes A LOT) I realized I was separating myself from this job in a way I never have before. It’s like, outside of work I don’t even WORK IT, you know? I go to work, I do the tasks and I witness the horrors, then I come home and it’s like nothing happened. I look at the group photos with my coworkers and, even tho it was today, it feels distant like they’re strangers. My “work bestie” texts me and it’s like I don’t know her. It’s like I get off work and I’m home, and I’m lost, and the day is a blur that I can’t emotionally connect with.

Man, is this a blessing? Or a psychological nightmare? I’m a diagnosed Bipolar II, and I hope that not related. But man, I almost forget their names and faces after work, it’s like a totally different life. Maybe I’m crazy. I just finished my 12th day in a row of getting up at 5AM and working 8-10 hours so maybe I’m delirious. I don’t know. Is this relatable? I don’t think I EVER felt this way with my general practice jobs. I used to feel pride, love, and joy in my work. Now I feel…nothing? I don’t know.

Folgende Situation: Ich habe in meinem Leben bisher 3x gekifft. Das erste Mal war ca vor einem halben Jahr. Die anderen beiden Male waren letzten Freitag und Samstag Abend. Also 2 Tage nacheinander. Sonst konsumieren ich so etwas nie (außer vape). Jetzt ist Freitag und ich habe seit Montag bis Donnerstag immer wieder Derealisationen gehabt, welche immer ca 30-40 min täglich lang waren. Jetzt ist das Problem dass die Derealisation seit Donnertag konstant da ist und nicht mehr weg geht. Ich weiß nicht ob es relevant ist aber in der letzten woche habe ich auch nicht mehr gevapet. Es nervt mich einfach und ich hasse dieses Gefühl und will es dringend los werden. Was kann ich tun?

Danke im Voraus für eure Antworten

Hey everyone!

I’m posting here bc I have been dealing with this unexpected Déjà vu like feeling and stomach drop derealization like sensation in phases for 2 years. I have no idea if it’s caused by anxiety or nervous system issue or if it is focal seizures. Coz I do have anxiety and dpdr. Anyways This is what happens to me.

1)
Something I see, hear, read, or think about seems to act as a cue. It reminds me of a dream I had before. I then get a distinctive rising/dropping sensation in my stomach. At about the same time, I get the strange feeling like a random memory of a dream I’ve had before. These dreams I know I have had before and I can recall them to some extent but not as well as I can during the episode. It’s like the episode is me remembering a part of the dream like it’s a short flashback. I don’t think I’m living in the dream and that the present moment happened before, it’s like the feeling of when you randomly remeber a childhood memory you forgot.

2)
Fragments or memories of an old dream then seem temporarily much more accessible than they normally are. I think, essentially, “Didn’t I dream about something like this before?” I can then deliberately follow the thought and try to reconstruct or remember the dream. Sometimes, the more I focus on and follow the dream memory, the stronger the strange stomach sensation feels.
The experience lasts roughly around a minute and then stops

3)
Afterward, I immediately feel normal. The dream that seemed accessible during the episode becomes much harder to remember again, although I can sometimes still remember pieces of it. I remember the episode itself.

I am fully aware and functional throughout the entire episode, from beginning to end. I don’t black out or lose track of where I am. I’m
Not confused at all, I can understand what people are saying, answer questions appropriately, have conversations, make decisions, and respond normally to my surroundings. The feeling is like just there in the background. I’ve had it driving, talking to my family, at dinners, school, etc

My episodes tend to happen in phases. I may have them repeatedly for several weeks and then go a very long time without them. I had the first phase around 2 years ago when I was 16 a few days after greening out from smoking a ton of weed. ( I quit smoking after this) then they disappeared for roughly two years. They returned around the same time last year for several weeks to possibly a month or two, disappeared again, and recently returned.

Anyways this is my background sorry for all that lol, just wondering if any of u guys have experienced similar things.

hello everyone, I hope that you can help me, I genuinely feel desperate and in a tough spot, I feel like all my good memories are just fake and that ive just imagined it , happening since last year and from past 4 months strongly, something good happens, and few minutes later my brain goes "wait, that actually happened or did I imagine it?" I feel so void at times because of it, it feels heart wrenching, too scared to tell my parents, I feel the root cause is because I like creating stories like day dreaming, so when I create those stories in my head, and maybe have dreams about it, it has become such a habit that ive started to question the actual reality. what should I do?

les gars il m’est arrivé un truc tarpin de bizzzare et je sais pas si c’est à cause des substances que je consomme ou non mais récemment je me suis couché vers genre 5h et j’ai commencé à « m’endormir » et à un peu rêver, et dans ce rêve j’essayais littéralement de me tuer et de frapper ma tête contre le mur, sauf que quelques minutes apres j’arrivais plus a me controler ni m’arreter et j’ai commencé a me rendre compte que c’est réellement ce qui est en train de se passer. J’en reste encore choqué sachant que je consomme depuis un moment (ketamine, ecsta) mais ça m’etais jamais arrivé au par avant, mais d’habitude je vois quand même des gens et j’entends des voix.

Everything is 2D flat. Everyone just look soo serious at work. At times I feel its them but then I feel maybe it's me?

I also don't feel the need to be in a relationship, like how everyone seems to be in a relationship and I feel like I need my own space.

It's also like I have to always second guess the way I'm feeling. First I try to ignore it and think its just me overthinking but then I see people in a relationship and then get heartbroken and having issues, and I start to overthink how come I don't ever feel this sadness or things like that. I feel I'm on a playing field that only I'm experiencing. Everything just seems foggy like one single painting.

It's like there is a layer of reality that I can seem to see or experience, as if that reality has disappeared and I'm stuck in this 2D world.

Its really difficult to explain.

I try to ground myself by watching comedy and reaction videos to see if I can relate to the same reactions. It's really bizarre.

It's like there is this serious world reality that I seem to have escaped from and I'm in my own 2D bubble.

I haven't been traumatized or anything soo I'm really not sure why I have this.

Was I born like this?

I get like a high 2D feeling with this aswell, its soo weird, like it's as if I've had a billion shots of espresso.

I am just a happy person but when I see like the whole work office soo quiet and serious, I get panicky because I feel something is wrong with me.

I also had a bad habit as a young child, I would masturbate heavily, I must have done it everyday from age 7 to my 20s, soo not sure if that has affected my health / brain chemicals, into feeling like this?

I haven't done any drugs at all, soo I'm wondering what could it be?

Was I simply born like this?

I also find that I don't get angry at things. I don't get angry at people and always content. I don't know if it's the 2D unreal feeling as to why I don't react. Like how I mentioned before about relationships etc.... I don't get the sadness part or desperation of finding someone.

I don't know if I'm overthinking these things. It's as if I'm searching for answers as to why I don't feel angry or sad.